Bernie Sanders likens West Baltimore poverty to 'Third World' country

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Source: Baltimore Sun

"Anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you're in a wealthy nation," Sanders told reporters at the Freddie Gray Empowerment Center. "You would think that you were in a Third World country."

"But today what we're talking about is a community in which half of the people don't have jobs," Sanders said. "We're talking about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable."

Gray, who was arrested in April, died after suffering a spinal cord injury in police custody. The subsequent protests against police brutality drew international attention. Hours after his funeral, the city erupted in arson, looting and riots. As Sanders toured the city, the trial of the first of six police officers charged in Gray's death entered its seventh day downtown.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-sanders-baltimore-20151207-story.html

[KamaAina]

1. I hear it's exactly like North Korea

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. West Baltimore is no joke

I couldn't get off work to be there today.

[KamaAina]

4. That's a DU classic

A DUer named Hannah Bell actually compared my home town of Bawlmer to the DPRK, apparently in dead seriousness!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

19. Wow!

[EndElectoral]

3. Blunt, but necessary

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. Yes

Freddie's neighborhood is dire.

[Recursion]

30. No, it's not. Baltimore has a lower poverty rate than the nation as a whole

And lower inequality than most US cities, including Burlington.

[PotatoChip]

56. Poverty rate for Baltimore- 23.8%. Poverty rate for the nation as a whole- 14.8%

Baltimore (2014 data):

The poverty rate in Baltimore is an extremely high 23.8%, based on persons living below the poverty level from the Census measurement from 2009 to 2013 period. Maryland’s level is 9.8%, well below the national rate of just above 15%.

Read more: Baltimore Demographics: The City by the Numbers - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/economy/2015/04/28/baltimore-demographics-the-city-by-the-numbers/#ixzz3tqleB89D

United States (2014 data):

Median household income- $53,482

Per capita income- $28,555

Persons in poverty- 14.8%

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110214/00

[Recursion]

60. You're mixing household and individual rates (nt)

[PotatoChip]

61. The rates in my title are both individual rates. (nt)

[ErikJ]

6. Ghettos r wrong and should be gentrified.

Ghettos are for keeping poor people together which guarantees their continued poverty. Urban renewal $ should be directed at ghettos of America to "gentrify" them and disperse the poor to more healthy job rich areas.

[Ed Suspicious]

9. Breaking up communities and bringing in rich folks to

drive up housing prices is your answer?

[ErikJ]

15. And Nazi like "concentration camps" is better?

Gentrification is 1000 times better than leaving a community to rot which does nobody any good. People that want the poor and jobless to stay concentrated in one place of hopeless and desperation are akin to Nazis.

[Ed Suspicious]

17. Holy shit. It isn't going to be easy to discuss the issue

when at the first resistance you're calling me a Nazi.

[forest444]

18. And not only that, I think Erik is overlooking a key and fairly obvious point:

That gentrification for the most part pushes the poor out to even worse areas, rather than absorb them into the gentrified area itself. The areas where the dispersed end up, moreover, are usually far from their existing jobs or from sources of any new jobs.

The inevitable result for many is that they end up moving in with relatives in other metro areas (sometimes thousands of miles away). This of course tends to aggravate already critical crowding conditions among the poor, as well as inflicting what can sometimes be a traumatic, even destructive, uprooting experience for them.

Gentrification can work, if safeguards such as ordinances requiring that for every 10 or so upscale housing units developed, a least one unit be developed as affordable. This has been more or less successfully implemented in a few cities - New York, among them.

[ErikJ]

20. The suburbs have cheaper rent generally than the inner city

in most cities in the world. Dispersing them to a more mixed integrated area in race and income to where there are more jobs and opportunity and hope can only help them. I think America might be unique in having the poor inner city surrounded by richer areas. Probably from the rampant white flight of the 50's and 60's.

[forest444]

22. That's largely true as well.

Don't forget, though, that whereas in a Third World country trying to erradicate a slum area the slum dwellers are forcibly relocated (typically far from sight), here the evicted poor usually have to disperse themselves.

Unfortunately, they don't usually end up in stable working-class suburbs where they can start over on the right foot and put down roots; they often end up in the boondocks, where meth, prostitution, and other serious problems run rampant (and where decent jobs are few and far between).

To many, of course, this is unacceptable - especially to families with children. The only real choice then for such cases is to move to a different metro area, often very far away and with relatives that only grudgingly take them in. Even so, sometimes this ends up being a blessing for the displaced; but sometimes not.

[Heddi]

28. That does nothing for the poor, though

Living in the suburbs and taking a bus in the suburbs means lackluster public transportation at best, none at worst. Many poor people live on the bus lines, and most suburban areas don't have the bus/trains/subways that the inner city does. That means longer commutes to and from work, which decreases the opportunity to do things like go to school or even have a second job if necessary. It means that childcare expenses go up because suburban child care facilities are fewer and farther between than urban ones, they are more expensive, and the increase in transit times means either extra busses to get the kids to and from daycare, or extra expense at daycare because of the additional time to and from work. Add in that suburbs are often several transit "zones' outside of the center and your $3.00 bus ride each way just became $5 or $7 each way. Your $91 a month pass just shot up to $140 a month.

I live in Philadelphia -- bigger than Baltimore but similar in many ways. I live in the downtown urban core. My previous job was about 4 miles from where I lived. Living in one of the most populated areas of philly and commuting via bus to one of the most populated areas in Philly was 2 separate bus rides ($3.50 each way for a transfer) and a 45 minute ride there and over an hour coming home, longer in the snow.

Not to mention that city services such as bus passes, welfare offices, housing offices, transportation offices are often located downtown. Food marts are closer in the urban city than in the suburbs, which again is another transportation cost-- now instead of a walk or 1 bus to the grocery and back, you're taking 2 or 3 busses each way to the grocery, plus having to lug the groceries, plus the cost of the ride, plus the time it takes.

No, don't move the poor people to the suburbs. Make the inner urban/city core a better place to live.

[ErikJ]

32. Nothing is as bad as leaving them in the poverty concentration camp

ghettos to rot in crime and filth. THe only way is integration and the only people willing to integrate at first are desperate artists and open minded liberals unafraid of integration.

But the only way to get more integration is to attract them with vibrant walkable type neighborhoods with coffee shops, galleries and small music venues.

It has been proven many times the government cant do it without the entrepreneurial class. Brand new high rise buildings concentrating the poor together like they did in Chicago is just asking for more disaster.

[Gormy Cuss]

53. ^^This^^

and it also destroys social networks (yes Virginia, even "ghettos" have functioning, supportive networks.)

[questionseverything]

57. yes we take care of each other because no one else is going to

we help our neighbors because we know we will need the help next

poor people are the absolute best people

[Gormy Cuss]

58. My neighborhood was destroyed under the guise of blight removal

in spite of the fact that most residents had been in place for many years and families took care of each other and (and perhaps because ) there was a very strong history of community organization. When dispersed these connections disappeared and outcomes for the displaced residents seemed to be based on whether they had relatives who could step up. A lot went from kinda dumpy rentals in a safe neighborhood of triple deckers where everyone sat on the porch to high density subsidized housing developments where no one spent any time in the common spaces.

Fast forward to the social media era and we've been finding each other. To a person, we all think that our older neighborhood with all of its warts was better than our relocated experiences because of community.

[ErikJ]

21. Sorry, I'm sick of "well meaning" people demonizing gentrification to justify

concentrated poverty, crime and hopelessness as good.

[Pastiche423]

26. Definition of gentrification

Gentrification is the buying and renovating of houses and stores in urban neighborhoods, which results in increased property values and displacing lower-income families and small businesses.

[ErikJ]

35. Sorry I'm a progressive and progress comes with change.

And if u've ever been to a ghetto 90% of the businesses are boarded up with grafitti and armed drug dealers standing out front. Hopw does that help anyone?

[Pastiche423]

36. No progressive supports gentrification

[LiberalElite]

38. Thank you. eom

[Pastiche423]

39. You are most welcome

Hopefully our fellow poster learned something today.

[ErikJ]

42. lol. Ironically, Progressives are one of the 1st ones to integrate

into ghettos. Open minded people unafraid of integration. Conservatives wouldnt even have the guts to drive thru these neighborhoods. I know that moving can be scary and hard but the average in the US is every 2 yrs anyway.

[LanternWaste]

55. Ironically, you fail to provide objective evidence for your allegation.

Ironically, you fail to provide objective, peer-reviewed evidence for your allegation.

[valerief]

41. I see. You haz a sadz for the property but not for the people. nt

[LanternWaste]

54. I'm sick of well meaning people demonizing the poor to justify gentrification

No more and no less than I'm sick of well meaning people demonizing the poor to justify gentrification (six of one, half a dozen of the other-- and each as without merit as the other). Regardless of the allegation of whether one is sorry or not.

No doubt, it's merely the irrational who believe that poverty or gentrification are the only options available. And your consistent illustrations of all options available rather than simply gentrification warms my heart.

[The Blue Pot]

46. Calling Godwin. Calling Godwin.

Subthread is over.

[ErikJ]

48. Not so fast Godwin: "Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettos_in_Nazi-occupied_Europe

Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the regime of Nazi Germany set up ghettos across occupied Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Gypsies, into small sections of towns and cities furthering their exploitation.

......................there were at least 1,000 such ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone.[2]

So what's the difference between that and letting our ghettos persist? Do u have any better ideas than the new highrise ghettos that were torn down 20 yrs later in Chicago which were also ghettos.?

[ariesgem]

52. City politicians are intentionally letting urban areas rot

and denying needed services so these areas can be sold on the cheap to land developers.

[AngryAmish]

11. I drove through Lawndale for the first time in 25 years. It was empty.

Few stores, no industry, few people. I worked there for about 7 years. It was never this bad.

Everyone left. Homes were torn down. Looks like Detroit.

[George II]

23. Gentrification and failed "urban renewal" just chases the poor to yet another ghetto.

Your solution to poverty is "dispersal"?

[ErikJ]

27. Urban renewal has been very successful in my city.

City took an old inner city industrial area and turned it into a high density walkable neighborhood. It now produces so much property tax that it has funded new urban renewal area districts. It also has a couple buildings for low or assisted income rent. Its now the "hottest" part of town with lots of retail and jobs.

Another area was a classic inner city ghetto area with boarded up store fronts and rampant crime and drug dealing. Its now a very hot retail district also producing massive property tax for the city.

Ironicallly these areas first attract artists looking for low rent big studios to work and live in. But they eventually have to move out because of gentrification demolition and rising rent so they are dispersed to new areas to pioneer. Along with the poor that have been displaced because of rising rent. Most find cheaper places in the burbs, jobs in the new retail stores or move to other cities. I'm a progressive so I think progress is great.

[LiberalElite]

37. Gentrification ruins neighborhoods - long time residents have to move for the upper class

Gentrification is sucking the life out of NYC. There has got to be a better way to improve people's living conditions without totally revamping the neighborhood so that no one can afford it.

"Disperse the poor disperse to more healthy job rich areas." WHERE MIGHT THEY BE???- Why cant' the jobs be brought to where the people are?

I'm touched by your concern.

[ErikJ]

40. Sorry, I believe in hope and change not the conservative status quo

The status quo is a living hell of desperation and crime with no jobs. And generally the white/pink collar jobs and high end retail jobs are in the inner core and the factory /warehouse/ box store jobs are in the burbs which are more suited to the poor. So u were WAY off there.

[ariesgem]

51. Gentrification drives rent UP and pushes poor people OUT

to pave the way to build a urban utopia for hipsters with deep pockets. It's nothing but a in-our-face LAND GRAB from greedy developers that's co-signed by politicians to ethnically & economically cleanse black/brown folks out of neighborhoods.

Fuck gentrification to the fullest...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. Our kids are starving

CNN doesn't care

[Dont call me Shirley]

8. Slumlords own much of the ghettos. They make a pretty fortune when gentrification comes.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. They probably live in Roland Park?

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. Probably.

[tabasco]

16. My thoughts exactly

when I drove through there.

[Glimmer of Hope]

24. West Bmore isn't the only community that is like this. There are other areas

of Baltimore with blocks and blocks of boarded up row homes. It is overwhelming.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. Yes

Many other areas in Baltimore and in other areas of the country not just in the inner cities. It is unacceptable that a society allows this.

[Recursion]

29. Oh bullshit. Baltimore is less poor and less unequal than Burlington.

http://www.civicdashboards.com/city/burlington-vt-16000US5010675/

http://www.civicdashboards.com/city/baltimore-md-16000US2404000/

I'm sick of people who've never lived there regurgitating some David Simon nonsense.

Baltimore's household poverty rate is 11.3% (with a 23.8% personal poverty rate); this is 1 percentage point below the national urban average, and three points below the national average as a whole. Let that sink in for a second. Baltimore's poverty rate is lower than most cities', and lower than the nation's. Baltimore has a lower poverty rate and Gini index than Burlington, for Christ's sake; Burlington's are 11.8% and 47. (This kind of reminds me of how Ferguson has a lower crime rate than most US towns.) In Milwaulkee it's 29%. (I use Milwaulkee as a comparison a lot because they're roughly the same size and have similar industrial histories.)

In Baltimore, the top 20% of earners take home 48% of income. In Milwaulkee it's 49%. In Oklahoma City it's 50%. The national average is 49%.

The GINI index (a measure of income inequality; higher means more inequality) in Baltimore is .4498, which is above the nation's index as a whole of .4102 -- but that's nearly always true for cities (Portland's is .4443, and Seattle's is .4458). I want that to sink in too: Portland and Seattle have GINI indexes that are essentially indistinguishable from Baltimore's, whereas Miami, Durham, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Chicago, etc. are significantly higher (in the .49's) and places like NYC and SFO are off the charts (in the .50's).

Baltimore also had 5 low income families for every high income family (the "LI/HI" ratio), which is nationally very low (a low LI/HI is a good LI/HI). Buffalo, NY has 18. Modesto, CA has 20. Youngstown, OH has 44(!).

[kwassa]

44. The problem with these stats is this:

They measure the entire community. They don't really reveal how poor the poor are, unrelated to the entire city. There can be an extremely poor area within a relatively prosperous, or relatively large city.

These stats can be arbitrary as defined by how large or small the city footprint is.

[AZ Progressive]

31. Baltimore... this Baltimore?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

33. Yes this Baltimore

[kwassa]

45. These houses are not poor, they are vacant.

No one lives there.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. Lead paint: Despite progress, hundreds of Maryland children still poisoned-Baltimore Sun, Dec 5 2015

There's a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling of the rowhouse Olivia Griffin rents in West Baltimore. Rain leaks in through the roof, the lights in a bedroom don't work, and standing water fills one end of the basement.

The 27-year-old mother's biggest worry, though, is the flaking, peeling paint inside and out — and the dangerously high level of lead in the blood of her 1-year-old daughter, Lyric. Two of her other three children have lower but still potentially harmful levels in their blood as well.

Lead poisoning, once epidemic among Baltimore's poor, is much less common than it used to be, with the number of new city cases dropping by 86 percent since 2002. But it is still claiming young victims years after authorities vowed to eradicate it. At least 4,900 Maryland children have been poisoned by lead in the past decade, their brains exposed to a contaminant that causes lasting learning and behavioral problems. There are likely more victims, because not all children are tested.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/investigations/bs-md-lead-poisoning-gaps-20151213-story.html

[kwassa]

43. I don't think Bernie has been to the third world.

[The Blue Pot]

47. I beg to differ. Israel in the 60s

Lived in the kibbutz for a year.

[kwassa]

62. Israel isn't the third world. Israel is the first world.

[kwassa]

63. But did he see how the poor live?

This was a visit run by the Nicaraguan government. Bernie gets to see what they want to show him.

[forest444]

64. Excellent. With any luck, Daniel Ortega will be able to return the favor & be at Bernie's inaugural

Last edited Thu Dec 10, 2015, 01:21 AM - Edit history (1)

Things have a way of coming full circle, if you wait long enough.

Here's Bernie himself speaking on his Nicaraguan experience in Burlington on July 10, 1985:

[EX500rider]

59. I have to agree...this is slums in the 3rd world:

.....and before someone says: but American unemployed homeless live like that! - These are people who HAVE jobs in the 3rd world:

[PersonNumber503602]

50. Wow. I just went to google streetview, and the first street I went in 'west baltimore' is exactly

what he said. I'd say Detroit looks in better shape :/

*I haven't explored that much yet... So maybe I just landed in the one bad block, but I'm guessing not. I had no idea Baltimore was like this too.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2918332,-76.6453884,3a,75y,335h,88.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8WF1-T2LfCzKDEyBp8Obww!2e0!7i13312!8i6656